Hurricane Ike hits Cuba
Hurricane Ike roared on to Cuba today after destroying houses and crops on low-lying islands and worsening floods in Haiti that have already killed more than 300 people.
With Ike forecast to sweep the length of Cuba and possibly hit Havana head-on, hundreds of thousands evacuated to shelters or higher ground. To the north, residents of the Florida Keys fled up a narrow highway, fearful that the “extremely dangerous” hurricane could hit them tomorrow.
At least 58 people died as Ike’s winds and rain swept Haiti yesterday – and officials found three more bodies from a previous storm – raising the nation’s death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 319. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree.
Ike first slammed into the Turks and Caicos and the southernmost Bahamas islands as a Category 4 hurricane, but thousands rode out the storm in shelters and there was no immediate word of deaths on the low-lying islands.
Ike made landfall in eastern Cuba early today, said meteorologist Todd Kimberlain at the US National Hurricane Centre, and was forecast to hit Havana, the capital of two million people with many vulnerable old buildings, before it moves into the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow.
At 4am BST Ike was a Category 3 hurricane with top sustained winds of 120mph. It was centred near near Cabo Lucretia, about 135 miles east of Camaguey, moving westward at 13mph.
State television broadcast images of the storm surge washing over coastal homes in the easternmost city of Baracoa, and reported that dozens of dwellings were damaged beyond repair.
An informal AP tally of figures being released sporadically by eastern Cuban provinces indicated that more than 600,000 people had been evacuated by Sunday evening. Former President Fidel Castro released a written statement calling on Cubans to heed security measures to ensure no-one died.
Foreign tourists were pulled out from vulnerable beach resorts, workers rushed to protect coffee plants and other crops, and plans were under way to distribute food and cooking oil to disaster areas.
Strong gusts and steady rains fell at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in south-east Cuba, where all ferries were secured and beaches were off limits. The military said cells containing the detainees – about 255 men suspected of links to the Taliban and al Qaida – were hurricane-proof. But the base was spared the strongest winds.
The Turks and Caicos had little natural protection from storm surges of up to 18ft. Premier Michael Misick said more than 80% of the homes were damaged on two of the British territory’s islands and people who did not take refuge in shelters were cowering in closets and under stairwells, “just holding on for life”.
In South Caicos, a fishing-dependent island of 1,500 people, the airport was under water, power will be out for weeks, and at least 20 boats were swept away despite being towed ashore for safety, minister of natural resources Piper Hanchell said.
The Bahamas’ Great Inagua island was hit soon after and both of its shelters sprung leaks in the 135mph winds.
“It’s nasty. I can’t remember getting hit like this,” reserve police officer Henry Nixon said from inside a shelter holding about 85 people, who peeked out at toppled trees and houses stripped of their roofs when Ike finally passed.
Great Inagua has about 1,000 people and about 50,000 West Indian flamingos - the world’s largest breeding colony. Both populations sought safety from the winds and driving rain, with the pink flamingos gathering in mangrove thickets. Biologists worried that their unique habitat could be destroyed.
“There’s a possibility that the habitat can’t really be replaced, and that they can’t find an equivalent spot,” said Greg Butcher, bird conservation director for the National Audubon Society. “You might have a significant drop in the number of flamingos.”
In flooded Haiti, Ike made an already grim situation abysmal. The coastal town of Cabaret was particularly hard hit – 21 victims were stacked in a mud-caked pile in a funeral home there, including two pregnant women, one with a dead girl still in her arms. More than a dozen children were in the pile.
Heavy rains also pelted the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbour on the island of Hispaniola, where about 4,000 people were evacuated from northern coastal towns. One man was crushed by a falling tree.
Where Ike goes after Cuba was hard to predict, leaving millions from Florida to Mexico worrying where it will strike.
“These storms have a mind of their own,” Florida governor Charlie Crist said as tourists and then residents evacuated the Keys along a narrow highway.
Off Mexico, Tropical Storm Lowell was moving north west parallel to the coast with maximum sustained winds of 60mph. But the hurricane centre predicted it would veer into the Baja California Peninsula late in the week.
